Working together with international organizations like the United Nations DDR/RR team (Demobilization, Disarmament, Repatriation, Reintegration and Resettlement of foreign armed groups) within MONUSCO (Mission de l’Organisation des Nations Unies en République Démocratique du Congo), The Voice Project began supporting efforts to build new radio stations and to provide music based “come home” programming throughout the combat theater of Congo, CAR and South Sudan, including authentic Acholi songs from communities across northern Uganda. The Radio Resources database was formed, a first of kind effort to gather this content together and make it accessible to radio stations throughout the combat theater through a low-bandwidth download portal with files compressed for the slowest download connections.

And it worked. Hundreds of soldiers started coming coming home, defections, escapes and home returns increased dramatically and in the debriefings conducted with those coming out of the bush, 89% were indicating that it was because of the “come home” programs that they made the decision to escape and come home. What had once been considered a marginalized strategy was now embraced by the international community, including the African Union military forces pursuing Joseph Kony and US military advisors as a key “end-game” strategy for bringing and end to the war.